When we
speak of tradition, many people think of England, the Queen the House of
Lords, Rolls Royces, top hats and British distinction and poise…

All of
these impressions, considered as a whole, cause divergent reactions in
people's minds.

Very
many see tradition under different hues as time goes by, depending on the
varying impressions current lifestyles successively cause upon them. At
times, the hustle and bustle of huge modern cities fascinate them. They
feel enthused about today's colossal organizations, mammoth planning and
technology all of which are turning science fiction into reality. At those
moments, tradition looks like a sad backwardness to many of our
contemporaries.

In the
midst of the whirlwind that is overthrowing all hierarchies and blowing
away all clothing, tradition feels like stifling yoke. But when the
triumphant vulgarity of an increasingly egalitarian world, the noisy,
frantic, and hurly-burly rhythm of daily life, and the instability
threatening all institutions, all rights and all situations cause
neurosis, anguish and stress in millions of our contemporaries, then
tradition appears to them as an elevated rest for the soul, good sense,
good breeding, good order and, in a word, the art of living wisely.

The
question then is what to make of tradition? What should we think of those
moments of excessive longing and the long days of inordinate distaste so
similar to the bouts of hunger and loss of appetite of some patients?

There
are many who don’t know how to resolve the fleeting and subtle spiritual
dilemma that at times tears their souls in regard to this question. And
because of this, they flee from the topic. Undoubtedly, this flight
produces a wall of silence about this matter. In general, however, this
silence does not mean indifference. On the contrary, it is a result of
both perplexity and hypersensitivity. The subject is too painful. Isn’t it
better, then, to duck it and have a drink?

The
crimson standards with the golden rampant lion that the TFPs raise in so
many cities all over the world, invite us not to be disheartened and
weakly shirk the issue, but to resolve it and thus acquire an internal
peace that only the truth gives entirely and that all the drinks in the
world cannot provide.

Why
does our standard cause reactions far more lively than the emblem of any
party or association? Why does it stir up sympathies and antipathies of
all kinds, ranging from people kissing it filled with admiration, gazing
at it as if singing a hymn of praise, to hateful attempts to rip it and
hurl it to the ground? To a great extent, I believe it is precisely
because it raises that problem.

What
then, does this standard mean? That the past should have stood still? That
everything of the present should be accepted?

The TFP
standard does not flee from the problem. It denies it. It denies that
tradition is only the past and therefore does not fit into the present.
True tradition, in principle, is neither for the past as such nor for the
present as such. It presupposes two principles: (a) that every authentic
and living order of things has in itself a continuous impulse toward
improvement and perfection; (b) that, therefore, true progress is not to
break but to go on to the heights.

In
short, tradition is the sum of the past plus a present that is akin to it.
Today should not be the denial of yesterday, but rather its harmonious
continuation.

In more
concrete terms, our Christian tradition is an incomparable value that must
rule the present. It acts, for example, so that equality may not be
understood as the sweeping away of the elites and as an apotheosis of
vulgarity; so that liberty may not serve as a pretext for chaos and
depravity; so that dynamism does not become frenzy; so that technology
does not enslave man. In a word, it aims to prevent progress from becoming
inhuman, unbearable, and hateful.

Therefore, tradition does not mean to stifle progress, but to protect it
from going absurdly far astray as to become organized barbarity. That
barbarity against which another barbarity arises, disheveled and furious:
that of Marcusianism. (**)

(*) The
preceding article has been translated and adapted for publication without
the author’s revision.
American TFP.

(**)
Herbert Marcuse — a philosopher and social theorist born in Berlin in 1898
who held that man must give free rein to his instincts, behaving as he
pleases whatever the circumstances.